Enable Cisco Discovery Protocol on a vSphere Distributed Switch

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Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) allows vSphere administrators to determine which Cisco switch port connects to a given vSphere standard switch or vSphere distributed switch. When CDP is enabled for a particular vSphere distributed switch, you can view properties of the Cisco switch (such as device ID, software version, and timeout) from the vSphere Client.

Prerequisites

Launch the vSphere Client and log in to a vCenter Server system.

Procedure

Log in to the vSphere Client and select the Networking inventory view.

Right-click the vSphere distributed switch in the inventory pane, and select Edit Settings.

On the Properties tab, select Advanced.

Select Enabled from the Status drop-down menu.

Select Cisco Discovery Protocol from the Type drop-down menu.

Select the CDP mode from the Operation drop-down menu.

Option

Description

Listen

ESXi detects and displays information about the associated Cisco switch port, but information about the vSphere distributed switch is not available to the Cisco switch administrator.

Advertise

ESXi makes information about the vSphere distributed switch available to the Cisco switch administrator, but does not detect and display information about the Cisco switch.

Both

ESXi detects and displays information about the associated Cisco switch and makes information about the vSphere distributed switch available to the Cisco switch administrator.